Shadowgod

by Michael Cobley

  But when Bynark’s war machine struck the wall and on the third impact broke it, she felt a distant ache. Events tumbled after one another in terrible succession - the ashen wraith of the Lord of Twilight tearing away from the insensible Byrnak to sweep down on Nerek, the abduction of Alael, the arrival of the witchhorses and Tauric’s death at Nerek’s hands. She almost gasped at that final sight, Taurik falling to the ground, blood from his chest and mouth darkening the snow, while the possessed Nerek then slew the witchhorse –

  “Suviel.”

  The goddess’s presence flooded the glade, and all her confusion suddenly drained away. In the window a dazzling burst of light blotted out the bloody spectacle, then faded to show a purposeful Nerek now outside the city, approaching a riderless horse and moments later galloping westwards…

  With a small gesture of the Earth Mother’s pale hand, the window dissolved back into the lush green tangle of leaves, tendrils and tiny red and black flowers. She had adopted another form which had the perfect likeness of the monument’s carving of the seated woman – her skin, hands and eyes were like white marble made flesh, and the stone-milk of her gown hung and flowed like cloth.

  “Suviel.”

  Again, her name, and all that she had been stood forth in her mind, all her memories and experience waiting to be called upon like a legion of helpers and all rooted in an unquestioning faith and obedience to the Earth Mother.

  “A fragment of the Lord of Twilight has finally been uncaged,” the goddess said. “All he will want to do is hunt down the other fragments of himself, thus you shall smooth the way for him.”

  The blank, white eyes regarded her. “Release Ystregul from the chamber beneath the High Basilica in Trevada. I have taught you how to deal with the constraining spells, but know that once you have done so every denizen of those ancient halls shall be bent upon your destruction.”

  “What will the next task be?” Suviel dared to ask.

  A cold smile curved the polished lips. “If you succeed in this undertaking and survive the aftermath, find a safe place and wait – I shall come to you. Have you faith in me?”

  “I have.”

  “And are you obedient to my will?”

  “I am.”

  “Then accept my blessing and my gift and go….”

  With the Goddess’s last word, a sudden blur of darkness and half-glimpsed shapes whirled around and past her, as if she were stationary amid a rushing abyss. Just as suddenly all sense of motion died away to leave her standing in the dank darkness of a high windowless chamber. Behind her in the corner a faint, pearly radiance was fading from a shiny vine tendril which climbed up the wall less than a yard from a gap in the cobbled floor. By such meagre means had the Earth Mother opened a door for her. Once that numinous power had faded, there was only the weak glimmer of torchlight filtering in through the small, barred window of a door set high on one wall, at the head of a flight of steep stone stairs.

  But with her magesight Suviel had no difficulty in finding her way up the steps, and with her enhanced undersenses she could easily perceive the whereabouts of Ystregul’s prison. Wrapped in a multitude of spells it stood out like a flaring beacon surrounded by misty outlines of other corridors and rooms. The chamber she had appeared in was actually a dozen yards or more deeper in the rock of the Oshang Dakhal than the Shadowking’s prison, but she would have to climb to a higher floor in order to gain access to that part of the Basilica’s vaults.

  The door at the top of the steps was unlocked and, cloaked in an eye-beguiling glamour, she stole along the corridors in search of a way up. These many underground passages and rooms had been burrowed into the rock over two hundred years ago by Zothelis, the Archmage of that time whose ambition it was to create an entire town within the Oshang Dakhal. Left unfinished after his death, the many rooms were employed by successive stewards of the High Basilica as storerooms and dormitories. The Acolytes of Twilight, however, had found a new use for them.

  Suviel could almost feel the pain of the prisoners they held as she climbed stairwells and stalked along corridors. Pain in many shades, contrasting with the banal cruelty of the captors and torturers who had become mere instruments in the service of an inhuman power. She could almost feel their pain but only because those assembled elements of her old self were feeling it instead, and she caught flickers of anguish as she proceeded along a torch-lit passageway which led to a particular downward spiral stair.

  The passages were not deserted and twice she had to make a detour to avoid senior Acolytes accompanied by parties of novitiates. For the rest her glamour was sufficient to fool the guards and turnkeys as they did their rounds, and soon she was descending to that level where the Shadowking was held. Several spiral turns of steps brought her to a small, dim antechamber full of a curious blue-green radiance which emanated from the strange, hooked emblems fixed on the walls above arched doorways. Without pause she stepped through the arch to the right then had to duck into an alcove to allow a guard pass in the narrow corridor.

  Moments later she was standing before the door to Ystregul’s prison. It was riddled with alarm spells binding it to the massive doorframe but fortunately there were none linking the frame to the stone wall. She knew which thought-cantos to use and after a few careful, tense moments she reached out to push the heavy wood frame. Cradled in a web of Lesser Power, it swung noiselessly inwards. She stepped over the threshold and swiftly put an illusion of the undisturbed doorway in place behind her, then turned to regard the prisoner.

  Great ancient glyphs of power burned bright emerald in the floor beneath him, while to Suviel’s eyes the Shadowking’s casket hung at the centre of innumerable interlinked skeins of sorcery. Standing in that chamber felt like waiting between huge jaws eager to grind any intruder to nothing. But the Earth Mother had told her how to unlock those faltering energies in such a way as to make their unleashing work for her. Recalling those instructions, she was able to employ the Earth Mother’s power in the creation of two spells, one to break the chains holding up the casket, the other to reflect the backlash energies against the spells binding the casket itself.

  When they were ready, Suviel added one last refinement to the chain-breaker which would delay its unfurlment for a few seconds, long enough for her to find another chamber to hide in.

  She stood back to survey her handiwork. The chain-breaker hung in the air above the casket, a small, opaque orb with misty tendrils stretching out towards the four heaving chains. The reflective spell clung to the high ceiling, a rough, pearly oval from which a pale web spread across the stone.

  It was time. With a single thought she kindled the first spell into life and hurried from the chamber, intending to head back to the stairs. But a trio of Acolytes were standing along at the antechamber, deep in discussion, so she hastened down the corridor before her. She had gone perhaps a dozen paces when she felt the chain-breaker fulfill itself in a spasm of Lesser Power that jolted through her senses. As instant later there was a mighty crash, and the outfall of shattered spells sent vibrations through the stonework and a wave of disorientation through Suviel’s mind.

  Shouts came from behind and in front as doors were thrown open. In panic she dived along an empty, unlit side passage and turned its corner only to find that it ended abruptly in a solid door. The lock was a complex mechanism that she was able to defeat in a matter of seconds. Once open, she slipped inside then shut and locked the door behind her. Within, the chamber was sunk in utter darkness but her magesight revealed bare outlines – debris piled in one corner, a few trestle tables littered with broken pottery, candle stubs, torn and mouldering parchment. And near the centre were four iron pillars, two of which each had a man bound to it and seated on a half barrel. Both were blindfolded and had leather strapping across their shoulders, waists, thighs and lower legs. Both seemed insensible until one raised his head and said weakly –

  “Is… someone there?”

  Suviel felt frozen by a nameless fear as he
r dislocated memory began to recall fragments of a confinement in blackness, suggestions that she had been in a place very like this before her death….

  She turned to the door and her soft boot scraped on the floor.

  “Who’s there?” said the man.

  Clearer and stronger this time, the man’s voice set off a new surge of emotion, desperate hope warring with dread.

  The other man stirred. “Wha…. What’re you sayin’…..”

  “There’s someone in here with us,” said the first. “but they won’t say anything.”

  “Really, now? Must be some twisted fiend come to gloat over the prisoners…”

  Suviel moved towards the door then froze, realising that something was sitting in the way, a creature of some kind, its form as black as the room, its large, ungainly head coming up to her shoulders.

  Suviel Hantika, it said in harsh whispers that she heard only in her head. Do you recognise those two men?

  No. I… yes, a part of me does, she replied in her thoughts. Who are you? – what are you?

  A friend who would see you well and whole again.

  A feeling of terror gripped her mind and a longing for the Vale of Unburdening swept through her, prompting a prickling of tears in her eyes.

  Wholeness… is of no interest to me, she said. I have no need of it.

  How would you know what you want or need? the creature countered. It suits the Earth Mother for you to be this poor, disconnected thing that stands before me. Your ignorance and fear serves her purpose!

  Purity is purity, she replied doggedly. Purity demands pure sight.

  In that case I think there may be something wrong with your eyes, it said sardonically. Let me help you…

  Before she could say or do anything, a hot charge sprang through her like a storm of coalescence. Emotion and memory and will embraced one another, joining empathy and intuition in a festival of the senses that lasted for a long, glorious instant. Tears came freely and silently in the darkness now as she understood what had been done to her and others by this struggle between gods. Now that she was whole, she was able to view the entirety of the cruel conflict and see how the Earth Mother’s meddling had piled deceit upon injustice in the pursuit of her vengeance. Through her machinations, one part of the Lord of Twilight was in possession of the mirrorchild Nerek and heading for the citadel Gorla, while the most dangerous of the five Shadowkings was now free by Suviel’s own hand.

  I was dead, she said in her thoughts, but now I am alive.

  Conundrums proliferate in times such as these, the creature said wryly.

  Smiling in the darkness she regarded the hazy outline. Conundrums like yourself? she said. You remind me greatly of the hound-like beasts I saw in the desolation which the Realm of the Fathertree has become. Which power do you serve, I wonder?

  I serve no power, the creature said. I am but a shadow of what once was, a memory of a memory, the faintest echo of a departed glory. No, I serve no power and have only the meagrest vestiges of a vanished night left to me.

  Suviel was stunned by realisation. High Father, she said. Forgive my disrespectful -

  No, no, no, said the spirit of the Fathertree. No formality or stiffness – we have no time for such indulgence. Our angry Shadowking is just emerging in the main hall of the Basilica, having slain six Acolytes on the way, just out of displeasure, you understand. The whole place is in uproar and almost all the guards and Acolytes have left the underlevels, so now would be a good time to release those two friends of yours and find a way out. Agreed?

  Yes, but… how can we possibly stand against the hunger and wrath of gods?

  By striking at where they are strongest, the spirit said. The citadels Gorla and Keshada may exist in our world, squatting upon the Girdle Hills, but they also continue to exist in the Realm of Dusk. Through one of them we may reach the very heart of the Lord of Twilight’s power but we will need to muster whatever strength remains of the defenders of Besh-Darok, which will include the Crystal Eye and the Motherseed –

  And attack those citadels? Suviel was aghast.

  One of them, Keshada. It’s only as strong and invulnerable as those who command it. After Byrnak’s fall, his army’s loyalty split between those who serve his general, Azurech who now rules Gorla, and those that follow the gang of rivenshades, who hold sway over Keshada. You can see how one of these two – The Fathertree spirit nodded at the captives who had lapsed back into silence, - would prove useful in that place.

  You would have me lead him back into peril, she said. After all that he’s been through….

  All of the world is in peril Suviel. Uncountable lives, good, bad and indifferent, are balanced on a knife edge and those who can fight, must. There is much more to tell you but time grows short –attend to your friends and we shall speak again later.

  And before her magesight the strange, hound-like form faded away, glimmering outlines of its head and suggestions of eyes and a mouth melting into the leaden gloom. With a mixture of sadness and anticipation, she turned and walked back to the pillars and their seated prisoners. The taller of the two raised his head at her approach.

  “Ah.. our visitor returns.”

  “Have they brought anything to drink?” said the other. “A good wine would be most welcome..”

  “Hush,” she whispered. “There are enemies about.”

  “A visitor who speaks,” murmured the first. “And a woman, to boot.”

  “Hmm, you noticed that too, eh?”

  Suviel shook her head, then broke off a scrap of thread from within her gown and used it to make a wordlight, a tiny speck of radiance which she floated in the air above her head. She then reached out to the taller man sitting before her, and tugged his blindfold up and off. Blinking and wincing at even that meagre glow, Ikarno Mazaret gazed up at her with a wary smile.

  “Greetings, lady. Whoever you are, you have my deepest thanks.”

  Emotions surged and clashed within her as their gazes met. There was a sense of loving triumph in being her beloved’s rescuer, and there was sorrow and heartbreak in realising that she was a stranger to him.

  “My duty and pleasure, sir, “ she said, quickly freeing his hands then turning to the other captive. She surreptitiously wiped tears from her eyes before lifting the other’s blindfold and cutting his bonds. Flinching from the tiny hovering wordlight for a moment, Gilly Cordale peered up at her and smiled. His face was gaunt, there was a good deal more silver in his hair and beard than before, but despite losing most of his memory and essence to the rivenshades, something unquenchable in his character remained.

  “A fair sight,” he said. “ I am in your debt, m’lady.” Then he looked round at Mazaret who was leaning on his pillar.

  The two men regarded each other for a long moment.

  “You’re somewhat shorter than I expected,” Mazaret said.

  “Well, you’re certainly uglier than I imagined,” Gilly replied.

  Both men laughed quietly as Suviel looked on in delight. Then Gilly faced her, as did Mazaret.

  “Lady,” said Gilly. “I have no knowledge of my name or anything that has happened to me, beyond my awakening here a day ago. Such holds true for my friend here also-”

  “Except that I have been held prisoner in this stone pit for several days that I know of.” Mazaret regarded her levelly. “Tell us honestly, lady – do you know of us, and do you know our names?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said to them. “You are Ikarno Mazaret, and you are Gilly Cordale.” As both men began to speak at once, she held up her hands. “Please, sirs, we have no time for questions – we are deep inside a stronghold of deadly foes and if we are to escape we must act now while all is in commotion…”

  A familiar presence brushed against her undersense, making her pause.

  Act quickly if you can – Ystregul just left Trevada on the back of a nighthunter, heading east.

  Then the spirit of the Fathertree was gone again, leaving her in the gloom with he
r charges.

  “Weapons,” said Gilly. “We need weapons and disguises.”

  Suviel shook her head as she coaxed the Mother’s Gift into life about her fingers and began assembling illusion cantos in her mind.

  “No, disguises first then weapons.”

  * * *

  It was two days after her sorcerous talk with Bardow, Alael and Nerek (and three since her arrival in Untollan) that the commander of the ruined mountain stronghold paid Keren a visit.

  She was lying on her decrepit, skin covered pallet in the strange pillared and windowless chamber that was her prison, reading from a children’s book of fanciful tales when approaching footsteps outside the door made her look up. She had already had her evening meal of thin stew and hard bread, so knew that this was out of the ordinary. Closing the book she got to her feet, blew out the floating oil lamp on the shelf near her bed which left one lamp burning in a niche opposite the door. Then she waited in the shadows as a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open.

  “Domas! So I wasn’t dreaming that I’d heard your name.” Then relief turned to irritation. “But why have you kept me prisoner? You must have know who I was…”

  “Yes, Keren, I have known it was you, since before my man brought you here, in fact. And I’m sorry for this captivity but I’ve had to agree to certain conditions to gain the help we’ve needed this past week…”

  The former rider captain looked at once weary and on edge. He trudged past her, hunkered down to sit on her pallet and beckoned for her to join him. By the door, a pair of leather-clad guards waited impassively, each holding a torch and a spear.

  “So…” She sat down beside him. “Who are these allies of yours? More to the point, can I be of use to you here? And have you had any news from Besh-Darok”